the best places (and techniques) to distribute your blog posts 🗣

Today's challenge:

Share your content with

THE WORLD!

Hey friend,

It's Day #7 and that means the time has come.

It's do or die...for your brand new blog post!

Once the post is live on your site, you'll probably want to focus on getting your content out there.

Here are my tips for effectively distributing content and things to consider when deciding where to post your brand-spankin-new article.

Where and how to distribute your content

My main experience is really in SEO, which requires mostly patience ⏰ (and a little work getting links to your site)

(To give you an idea: The year I tripled traffic on one site from 30k/mo to 100k/mo, I published or updated over 40 articles. At the beginning, to get traction, it helps a lot to get in a publishing groove and set a goal like 1 quality post per week).

However, we live in an age of instant gratification 🍇 *eats grapes while being fanned in a villa* and there are avenues where you can get feedback on your content faster. In the end, it depends on where your target audience hangs out, and which of those places is "friendly" to promoting your content.

Here are a few ideas and tips for doing it:

• Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console: Google will automatically crawl your site for new content, but it never hurts to submit your sitemap by hand either. You can find this in the "Sitemaps" section of GSC.

• Share your content on Twitter: I don't think it's shameful to use 1-2 hashtags to help extend your reach. I often use the programming language and the library name (e.g. #javascript #reactjs) if it's relevant for the post. Be sure to @-mention any companies or technologies you're using, as they may re-share your content!

• Post your article in Facebook Groups: You need to be careful about whether the group permits posting of community content, or if they consider it spamming. Make sure your post is on-topic and relevant (ideally, directly helpful!) to the members, and when in doubt, ask an admin or moderator before posting. You can probably get a sense just by looking on the Wall and seeing if sharing is encouraged. (For the women on the list, check out Ladies Storm Hackathons for a sharing-friendly community)

• Post your article on LinkedIn: Like most developers, I avoid LinkedIn as much as possible, but for some types of content it's a great distribution channel (especially if you're writing about topics like product management, or something at your job where the company LinkedIn or HR team can re-share your post).

• Post your article to your Facebook Page: If you run a facebook page associated with your account, you can post and boost your article there. I don't do this for my tech articles, but I do often for my travel and photography content. It can be pretty cheap if the audience you're targeting is very big (e.g. "english-speaking women in Germany in this age range" or "Spanish-speaking people interested in software development").

• Create a pin on Pinterest and share it: Depending on what you're writing about, Pinterest can be an excellent traffic source. It's not just for recipes, and it's not just for women. The art and science of Pinterest is a whole 'nother topic, but if your audience is on Pinterest, it can be a highly effective way to bring eyeballs to your content.

• Post your article on Reddit: I'm not a big Reddit reader, but there are subreddits you can distribute to such as /r/reactjs. In most communities, helps to be an active member before just going in and sharing your content, so try and hang out a bit first. Developers can be especially sensitive to self-promotion by people they don't already "know"...and just sensitive in general 😛

• Post your article on Hacker News: If you do this you're braver than me. But it can be done :) I had a post go viral on Hacker News once and by staying away from the comments, I just got a bunch of nice emails from people! It wasn't as bad as I expected at all, and that month my Twitter following grew by 1,500 people O_O

• Syndicate your article: You can syndicate your content on Medium or ThePracticalDev (or other places), using your canonical URL. Always include a link back to the original article on YOUR DOMAIN if possible, so you can bring people to your territory (and your email list). Try a text like "This article was originally published on [Your Site Name]. Head over there if you like this post and want to read others like it."

• Send your new article to your email list: You can automate this using an RSS feed, but I think people (especially developers) notice the personal touch :) ConvertKit (my link) makes it easy to set this up so anytime you post something, they'll make a draft and email you to remind you to email your subscribers about your new article. Three cheers for automation.

I'll check in on you tomorrow to see if you did it, so make it happen 😁

And if you post it on Twitter, use the hashtag #bloggingfordevs and you can see, share, and respond to the content other people are writing, too 🙌

Looking forward to it!!

@monicalent

P.S. Where do you usually distribute your content? What has and hasn't worked for you? Just hit "Reply" to this email and share what you know. I'll be happy to update this to include your tips for future subscribers!